Maybe He'll Notice Her Now
by Sevi Snape
Summary: Will Severus notice Hermione when she leaves?


Disclaimer- I own nothing blah blah blah, the lyrics are Mindy McCready's

**Maybe He'll Notice Her Now**

So this was what it had come down to? Sat here by herself staring round the room and wondering where he was. She had thought when they were married that it would have been different. No more of his contemplative staring into space. She thought he would be just like when they had been dating, that he would stay open and show her all the affection that drew her to him like a moth. But he had become reclusive again. She knew that work played on his mind but he had to realize that he was letting her slip away with each day that he showed her no more notice than the spider crawling in the corner.

She still remembered when he had been so warm and open. They had been dating a few short months and they were sat together one night in blissful silence reading. Her head was on his lap and he was stroking her hair, occasionally lifting his hand to turn the page of his book. Suddenly he had dropped his book on the floor and started talking. About how nice it felt to sit like this with no need to saying and no tension in the air. That was the beginning of solving the mystery that was Severus Snape. He had opened up more and more over the days to come; it was like a flood gate. She never said much, just nodded and held his hand and watched him. Sometimes he never seemed to be talking to her, just talking for the sake of talking. Saying all the things that for years he had had to keep to himself, that he had lock away in his mind for fear of someone finding his weakness.

The silent nights were still there, although now they weren't blissful silence. She could tell that he needed to talk but again he was welling it all up again. It hurt that he wouldn't confide in her again like he used to.

"What are you doing woman?" she asked herself "you need more than this."

She picked up her quill and some parchment and she began to write a note……

_**She wrote I feel just like that painting**_

_**Collecting dust on the wall**_

_**And every day you walk right by me**_

_**And don't know I'm there at all **_

_**And I can't think of one single reason**_

_**Why I should be hanging around**_

_**She signed it I hope that you'll miss me**_

_**Then she flew herself outta town**_

She flew her broom through the night air, tears blurring the stars and the street lamps that she glimpsed below the clouds. She didn't really know where she was going, she just knew that this direction felt right. She would see where she ended up when she got there.

_**When he came home late that evening**_

_**He called her name down the hall**_

_**He saw the outline of the painting**_

_**That used to hang there on the wall**_

_**And in its place on the nail was a letter**_

_**He read it out loud to himself**_

_**Then the loneliness began to take over**_

_**And for once he knew just how she felt**_

Severus returned that night from another gruelingly long order meeting, his head pounding and his mind exhausted. He headed straight into the kitchen and poured himself a whiskey and knocked it back straight away. He poured another and wandered down the hall into the living room.

"Hermione?"

The house was silent and he turned back to the bedroom and opened the door quietly. The bed sheets were undisturbed and the lights were off. Walking back down to the living room he noticed that the wall above the mantle was bare.

"Hermione?" he called again as he entered the room.

Silence was the only thing that met him. He looked around again for some clue as to were his wife was. Then he saw the note on the mantle place.

He read the note several times before collapsing into the near by chair. The whiskey he had intended to sip as a night cap followed the last shot in a flash of the glass.

She had gone. The only woman, no the only person he had ever truly loved and opened up to. He had been selfish and too preoccupied with his own troubles to notice his wife and now she was gone.

His mind swam, where was she, was she safe? Was this really the end of their time together? They had been so happy. Everyone had said how much that fabulous woman had changed him. He was no longer the sullen bitter man her had once been.

His whole body ached as much as his head had. He couldn't think straight. He couldn't cry. The shock was just too much.

_**Maybe he'll notice her now**_

_**Maybe he'll open his eyes**_

_**Sometimes it takes somebody leaving**_

_**For a man to realize**_

_**Maybe he'll tell her she's the only thing**_

_**That he can't live without**_

_**Now that she's gone**_

_**Maybe he'll notice her now**_

He had never really noticed before how empty this house was and how his life seemed to stretch before him in an endless road before him. But then she had always been here and she had always made the house warm and filled his life with happiness. Until now he had never known that. He had never known that she felt so unwanted.

He wanted her everyday that they were married whether he had told her or not. He had wanted to wake up beside her every morning, to kiss her forehead every morning while she slept and he raised for work.

If she felt he hadn't noticed her before he certainly noticed her now. She was noticeable merely by her absence. The house no longer felt like home and he no longer felt whole.

The tears started to creep into his eyes. It was a feeling so unusual it almost shocked him to know he could cry. He had lost people before and he had mourned for them but he hadn't cried. They had died and she had only walked away and here he was, the fortress of Snape, crying.

He felt that all the color had drained out of everything. The furniture no longer seemed comfortable and the clothes he wore were no longer part his identity. The spy, the man who for years could year his persona to fit his situation, but had always knew who he was, had lost his identity.

The front door clicked shut behind him but he was too rapt in despair to notice. His chair faced the fireplace and not the door. He didn't see the figure standing in the doorway. He didn't see his angel standing there.

Slowly he regained some consciousness to his surroundings. He could smell the air was different but he thought it was his imagination.

"Maybe you'll notice me now" she said as she walked towards him.

She fell to her knees in front of him. Neither of them said anything. They didn't need to this was a silence that was thick with desire and understanding and above all love. Neither could live without the other and they had noticed each other buy their absence.

"Maybe I'll notice you now." He replied.


End file.
